I hate rushing through the details of this vacation, but it's been a couple months so my memory of events is a little foggy and I'm just making an attempt to catch up, so here are the highlights of the trip.
1. Day 1's Escape Game and Lunch:
The Escape Game is a bit of a new concept spreading across the country. Who knows if it will even exist in a few years. Essentially, the concept is that you're locked in a room surrounded by clues that will lead you to a way of 'escaping' the room. We pulled up to the "Escape Game: Nashville" building pretty early in the morning to find the building locked and empty; filled with lumber and power tools. Turns out, we were at one of the buildings next door into which they were expanding. After walking around, we found the correct entrance and signed in. The 'Nashville' room that we had selected for our escape was a room designed for up to 6 people. I suppose for reasons of booking efficiency, we were grouped with a family of four from Nebraska (I think). The game itself was pretty intense and a lot more enjoyable and detailed than I expected. There were lasers, black lights with invisible ink, trap doors and safes galore. We ended up successfully escaping the room with seconds remaining. As a reward, we got a sticker and the ability to buy a T-shirt (which we didn't because they were all black)
It was a friendly match prior to the start of the Gold Cup Tournament (I believe was the name of it), happening a few months later in Texas. The game itself was great. The US team crushed Guatemala. So much so that we left early. I would say the downsides to the soccer game were that the stadium was not ready for any kind of event, much less a high capacity crowd. The bathrooms were a wreck, the concessions were understaffed and short on food and drinks. The security was on the other end of the spectrum to a degree. We had brought Jillian's backpack purse and a couple stadium chair pads. Instead of checking the purse, they denied it all together, as well as the seat cushions. To make matters worse, we had walked there from our hotel so we had to make the trek back to our room to put everything away.
It might not have been the best zoo in the world but it was a nice way to spend part of the day, get some exercise and do a little reminiscing as we walked through the Africa Exhibit. Highlights included our introduction to the frozen, chocolate covered banana on a stick and baby kangaroos.
I'm not exactly sure what to say about Opryland. It's an interesting place; part garden, part hotel, part mall. We went. It was interesting. I likely wouldn't go back unless I was staying at the hotel. It was pretty inside though. They spent A LOT of money to make it that way.
I wouldn't say this was a highlight as much as it's a down note worth mentioning. Mother Nature had not received the memo that Nashville needed a nice evening for fireworks, so she sent rain. Lots of it. We made a valiant attempt to wait it out, but after about an hour of sitting under umbrellas in the cold, we decided it would be better to retreat to the hotel room and just watch movies. We never saw the fireworks, but heard them from our warm dry bed. Jillian later regretted missing them, but I sure as hell didn't. They're fireworks. You see them every year.
I believe it was our last afternoon in Nashville and we wrapped up our day with a nice dinner and soccer on tv. The US Women's team beat China handily, making us 2 for 2 on the weekend.
Arriving in Nashville, I was low on gas so we took a random exit from the highway looking for any nearby station. We ended up in the parking lot of a Sam's club. We figured that we might as well see what regional items they had while we were there. Turned out that they had some purple blanket that Jillian had regretted not buying months ago at our nearby Sam's before they became unavailable. She bought one then and during the trip she grew so attached that we went back on the way out of town to pick up a backup.
The End.
No comments:
Post a Comment